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“Imagine if you could record your life, everything you said, everything you did, available in a perfect memory store at your finger tips so you could go back and find memorable moments and relive them or sift through traces of time and discover patterns in your own life that previously had gone undiscovered.”

This is what Deb Roy did at the birth of his son, whose every moment was recorded from birth to present day. He is the Founder and CEO of Bluefin Labs, an MIT spinoff. This is Deb Roy’s TED talk March, 2011.

TED is a nonprofit devoted to Ideas Worth Spreading. It started out in 1984 as a conference bringing together people from three worlds: Technology, Entertainment, Design. Since then its scope has become ever broader. Along with two annual conferences — the TED Conference in Long Beach and Palm Springs each spring, and the TEDGlobal conference in Edinburgh UK each summer — TED includes the award-winning TEDTalks video site, the Open Translation Project and TED Conversations, the inspiring TED Fellows and TEDx programs, and the annual TED Prize.

This has to be shared with my audience. It is truly one of the most remarkable video moments I have had. It takes about 20 minutes to watch but it is riveting.

Enjoy this amazing father and his amazing family. Hang in there the end is POWERFUL!

Deb Roy studies how children learn language, and designs machines that learn to communicate in human-like ways. On sabbatical from MIT Media Lab, he’s working with the AI company Bluefin Labs.

“For more than forty years I’ve taught literature, history, consciousness, and writing as a senior teacher and administrator in major American and Asian universities, and in progressive preschools and schools. In part because of the subjects I teach, in part because of the ways in which we work together, students of all ages often confide in me with uncommon intimacy and trust.

I’ve learned far more than I’ve taught. In particular I’ve learned that for all human beings nothing in life is more important than our experience of parenting. How we’re parented determines almost everything about how we envision and respond to ourselves, other people, life, and the universe: how we exist, how we seek, and what we accomplish.” Peter Glassman

I too taught school and had students confide in me with ‘uncommon intimacy and trust”. There was Gloria, whose mother was having an affair with a student who was 20 years younger than her mom. The student came to Gloria’s house one afternoon and shot and killed the mother. Gloria escaped his rage by hiding under the bed. I saw Gloria once after that and then she went to live with a relative in some distant place. Then there was Zack, who sat beside my desk one day. He was a “hippie” at 15. He drew a flower on the floor with chalk and said to me, “It is not the place where you live that makes you happy; it’s where you live in your head that makes you happy.” Zack walked onto the interstate one night in a happy state of mind and was hit and killed by a truck. Billy came from a family of PhD’s. Expectations for his success were high. He had blazing red hair, a frail frame, artistic nature, and was gay. He could not bear to reveal this to his socially prominent parents. He confided some of his misery to me. He became an addict. Kathy was the only child of doting parents. She was a talented artist who loved my English class and its emphasis on the art in each child as we studied literature and composition. She came to me one day in tears describing her parent’s shame with her desire to be an artist. She ran away. I too learned more than I taught.

Despite the immense importance of parenting we do not require courses, instruction, direction, or mentoring before a man and a woman make this amazing decision to have a child. However, we do require instruction, licensing and permitting for driving a car, flying an airplane, operating heavy equipment, opening a business, or practicing a profession. But in parenting, the single most important responsibility we ever undertake as adults, we offer no preparation in what children need, how children develop, and how we best can fulfill our immense opportunities and responsibilities in guiding, guarding, and gracing our children’s lives. Faith traditions, schools, or workplaces do not and should not assume this vital work.

This is the sole responsibility of parents in the early years. They are the ones who build self-esteem, confidence, sensitivity, compassion, and intellectual curiosity in their offspring. Parents are the ones who instill manners, respect, vision, ambition, and a desire to learn and to know. Yet in every jurisdiction on earth anyone can become a parent. We can raise our children, shape their minds, or devastate their souls in almost any manner we choose. Step into your malls on any weekend to observe our nation’s parenting results.

We create voids in a child’s life with our unskilled parenting. Voids create vacuums which are opportunistically filled with one substance or another. “Children have but one work in life. They learn. Learning is all that children do. They do it full-time, and they do it with genius. They observe. They glean. From the foundation of their own experience, they employ their intellect. They interpret. They judge. They learn.”Peter Glassman

Children long to learn from their parents; they are their first example, their first love, their first hero’s. However, as we parent badly or ignorantly, the void in a child’s life slowly fills with powerful competitors, the fascinating and alluring electronic media and their peers, who are a major influence in their lives. Because they have no strength of family to sustain them, they succumb to these immensely empowered alternative forces: schools, friends, play environments, and most importantly the contemporary pop culture that form our children’s emotional civilization. Parents, who have many excuses for their haphazard parenting skills, surrender their responsibilities for their children’s soul life to televisions, computers, or iPhones. These artificial caregivers become our children’s primary companions.

In our own hurried, frantic lives we let go of the careful and necessary supervision of our schools. We let lapse the passion for our children and our basic and necessary expressions of love and care. Children will not accept this void. They need to be loved, guided, and parented. If we can’t be there for them they will do three things to compensate for their unfulfilled yearning: they will decide we do not love them; they will conclude they do not deserve to be loved; they will look for, discover, and become profoundly influenced by other persons or presences that will parent them in our place.

In the end, we send these hapless children off to our schools, where classrooms are chaotic, disruptive, and filled with children whose parents had little time for them in the early years. Teachers often teach in classrooms that are obsolete and filled with children who have no identity or purpose. We expect teachers to be surrogates when we should be expecting them to bring the intellectual curiosity of our children to life. Teachers should be setting children on fire with knowledge and exploration of their God-given abilities. This should be the most exciting adventure of each child’s life; learning and exploration. So who is to blame for the failure of our schools? For the failure of our children?

So far we have looked at The Family from several aspects; the Smallest School, the Beginning of the Beginning, a Serious Decision, the Uterine Environment and the Moment of Birth, and Postpartum Dads. In thinking about all of this I looked at my own story and how I came to understand the serious nature of birth and childhood. It is an important decision to bring another human life in the world. But the most important parental duty of all is to ensure that the new life in your family has a chance for reaching its full potential.

It doesn’t take a PhD to raise a child in a responsible, loving, family environment. It takes careful thought, selfless action, and parental bonding. Unfortunately for the newborn child, many parents have little understanding of the most crucial and yet often neglected aspect of a newborn life, Brain Development. It is not necessary to understand all of the intricate scientific brain stuff. It is only necessary to have an understanding of the family experiences parents can present which will boost brain growth. Then a common sense, practical approach to early childhood rearing provides the proficiencies that develop Brain Growth in a way that allows your infant to leap forward into their promise.

Let me explore with you some of the research and insights regarding newborn Brain Development, from the blog Early Childhood Brain Insights. These clearly illuminate the parental care and commitment each child must be given in order to reach their promise and full potential:

Did You Know This Mom & Dad?

• Most people do not yet know that 90% of children’s brains are developed in the first 5 years, and 85% in the first 3 years. The brain adapts and grows primarily based on the experiences a child has in these years before they enter school!

• A developing brain will adapt to whatever happens repeatedly in the environment. For a brain to develop optimally, a child needs to have fun, interesting, loving experiences throughout the day.

• Environments that are chaotic, disorderly or have high levels of stress have a direct influence on how optimally a child’s emotional and thinking areas of the brain develops.

• The easiest time for the brain to learn a second language is during the pre-school years. Research indicates there may be additional benefits when learning multiple languages. Children can develop better overall verbal skills, a better vocabulary, and sequencing abilities.

• The brain is ready to learn basic math skills in the pre-school years. It doesn’t occur from saying the numbers in order. It learns through doing comparisons of size and shape, and few and many. Connections will be made in the brain when this is done with real objects.

• Research demonstrates that nature helps the brain relax and restore itself after experiencing stress or negative emotions.

• The quality and quantity of exposure to nature directly affects the physical health of the brain.

• Even though the brain is making trillions of connections as an infant and toddler, it takes years throughout childhood and adolescence to organize it into a mature adult brain.

• The quality of the relationship an infant has with his or her parents has a direct impact on the physical development of the brain. This impacts the nature and extent of a child’s perceptions and capabilities.

• Loving interaction with people and exploration of objects is as necessary to a child’s brain development as food.

• By the time a baby is 6 months old the brain may have developed 1,000 trillion brain connections through experiences in their environment.

• A child has already developed a perception of self and their environment by 12 -18 months based on the relationship they have with their parents.

• Brain connections for language are developed through direct interaction with parents NOT through television and videos.

• Aggression, impulsiveness, and lack of empathy can result when a brain experiences repeated neglect, chaos, or violence.

• The brain does not like chaos. It feels more comfortable when it knows what to expect.

• The absence of consistent and quality experiences leads to a loss in brain potential.

• Physical play stimulates the emotion regulating areas in the brain.

• Once the brain is developed it takes much more repetition, time, and consistency to change what has already been hard wired.

• The brain is always changing and making new connections. However, it is more difficult to modify after it has been originally wired in the newborn.

None of the above is out of reach for any parent. Early Brain Development is NOT complicated and it makes an impact that affects every one of us, especially our children. It only takes time, love, and creative thought. Each child deserves a Brain Boost in their first years, without it they are destined for a life of mediocrity and boredom.

I used to tell my sons, “The most serious decision you will ever make in your entire life is the woman you choose to be the mother of your children. Your children and your family will prosper if you make this decision carefully, thoughtfully, and with love.” It’s a simple concept and yet so many children are born haphazardly into relationships where their parents are children, and whose parents were children, and so it goes.

I don’t know how to change humanity. I don’t even know how to influence the children who are having children. Since they come from families where they were conceived with little thought, and raised with little guidance, how can we expect a generation of the thoughtlessly conceived to care about the uterine environment, birth, and childhood of their children? How can we expect them to care about raising their children with love, care, and discipline when they were not offered this opportunity in their own lives? It is a leap! I am asking for a leap into the unknown. How do parents become something that was not demonstrated to them as children? This is the dilemma.

In order to change a generation, the generation who produces it must change. Change is difficult but it is possible. I did it. If I did it, anyone can do it. I was raised by parents who were teenagers when I was born. Childhood for me was difficult at best. However, when I became an adult and had children I was determined they would not be raised as I was. I knew I had to accept the responsibility of changing myself so these small, innocent wonders would have a different life than mine.

It is the responsibility of each generation to improve the next. If this enlightenment does not occur then generation after generation languishes in an unending cycle of ignorance, poverty, and repetition. How undignified! How humiliating! What a curse to place upon an infant before they even have time to open their eyes and smile up at whoever it is that birthed them.

Now you might ask, “What does this have to do with education?” Everything!

If we are unable to reach and influence today’s parents about how they birth and raise their children in stable environments, and who are surrounded with care and love, then we will never have an opportunity to produce a generation that will be free of the repetitious past of the generations preceding them. We need to begin at the beginning. We need to find a way to reach into our culture and have parents realize that when they have children they are their guardians and teachers. They are their example.

This begins in the uterine environment where the child gets its nutrients through the mother’s placenta. She is the Beginner. How do we do this? How do we change those who are soaked in poverty and humiliation? How do we unhinge peer pressure that manipulates so many children into staying where they are, wearing their sloth like a badge of honor? Somewhere, someone has an answer and I am anxious to hear it. We are running out of time. We are falling behind and soon our nation’s children will become the slaves of those nations whose children are motivated by parents who are raising and improving the next generation.

We need to send our children to school with an attitude of self confidence, intellectual curiosity, and undaunted creativity. We need to unburden our educational system from the job of disciplining children and set them free to teach, educate, and enlighten. We need to return to discipline, structure, and compassion in the classroom. This can only be done when there is discipline, structure, and compassion in the home.

I know this sounds so old century to a generation that is hyped on technology. But you know, the truth is some things never change. Some things are absolutes. Parenting is one of those unchangeable, absolute laws of nature.

If you are a parent, a grandparent, a teacher, or thinking about having a child you MUST read this article. Even though I am unfamiliar with this man, he is stating the case for what I believed when I became a parent. I taught in the public school system after graduation from my university. I know what I experienced and I know how I felt about my students. I experienced the most amazing resistance from my principal and colleagues to innovation and creativity within the classroom. The rejection was discouraging. They did achieve their goals; I quit the system.

When I became pregnant I determined that our children would have a childhood filled with what Bertrand Russell describes below:

“Bertrand Russell once observed that American schooling was among the most radical experiments in human history, that America was deliberately denying its children the tools of critical thinking. When you want to teach children to think, you begin by treating them seriously when they are little, giving them responsibilities, talking to them candidly, providing privacy and solitude for them, and making them readers and thinkers of significant thoughts from the beginning. That’s if you want to teach them to think.”

Our Children’s School began in a garage, grew into 2 garages, then an art room, then an outside garden plot, then a small kitchen for cooking, and then into the woods surrounding our home. Our sons decided daily, weekly, monthly what it was that interested them and this determined their curriculum. They dissected worms, a cow’s heart they got “FREE” from the local slaughter house, and frogs. They looked at the stars and studied the universe and its constellations. This brought them to Greek mythology and the Gods. Soon they delved into space travel and astronauts and then went on to Space Camp in Alabama. Dinosaurs were big and so they studied the Jurassic period and took a field trip to Utah’s Dinosaur Valley. They built a tree house on a hill with a tree in the middle of the floor that they insisted could not be cut down – after all, “that is why we call it a tree house Mooooom!”

All of their preschool education incorporated the outdoors and the natural world. I can’t imagine how it is possible to educate preschool children without the outdoors for that is what intrigues them most. They love insects, small animals, rainy days with puddles to jump into, snowmen and snowball fights, butterflies, and the woods. The natural world and the woods are a home to them. They are free to run, explore, conquer, and grow.

It is with great satisfaction that I read an article this morning about a “forest kindergarten” in Vashon Island, WA. The Cedarsong Nature School is a forest preschool and among several that have opened in recent years in the U.S. This is a movement that originated in Europe (and my garages 30 years ago, chuckling). The purpose is to get kids out from in front of televisions and into the natural world. The kids love it! They are outdoors all day, studying how life interacts with them in the woods. These children are different when they enter elementary school. They are healthier, livelier, curious, more mature, compassionate, and intellectually alive. They have an inner joy that is hard to explain, which I believe comes from their knowledge of the natural world and their comfort within it. They are fearless.

Erin Kenny opened the Cedarsong Nature School, after she read “The Last Child in the Woods”, which I discussed in my previous post. In the book, Richard Louv coined the phrase “nature-deficit disorder” to explain a lack of connection between the country’s children and nature. He argues that the decrease in nature dwelling leads to a rise in childhood obesity, attention disorders, and depression. The evidence of this surrounds us. Go to the local mall on any afternoon after school and look at the children, who are usually obese, tattooed, “pants on the ground”, alienated, and looking for something to do inside an enclosed mall when the entire world is waiting for them to explore. They are an interesting comment on their parents and their rote education.

“We gain life by looking at life.”

Dr. Mardie Townsend, a researcher and associate professor School of Health and Social Development at Deakin University in Victoria, Australia

When we discuss the alarming rates of obesity in our children we are only talking about food. Right?

WRONG!

When we discuss obesity in our children we are talking about iPhones, computers, the internet, iPod / MP3 players, cell phones, lap tops, video games, movies, and televisions in bedrooms.

Obesity is about both parents working. It is about moms and dads depending on MacDonald’s, Burger King, and other fast food places that serve up quick meals that are artificially manipulated to appeal to the taste buds of their children. The calorie loaded nutrition-less food appeals to the lazy or dead tired side of our nature.

It is about school cafeterias who serve the dark edge of junk food to their students. It is about the money schools receive from vending machine operators. They are the suppliers of colas, candy, chips, and the vast assortment of empty calories to our children. It is about parental, teacher, administrator, complacency in the health of our children.

IT IS NOT JUST ABOUT FOOD! It is about the lack of exercise, play, friendship, and nature. It is about this generation’s sedentary, isolated, lonely life. The average young American now spends practically every waking minute, except for the time in school, using a smart phone, computer, television or other electronic device, according to a new study from the Kaiser Family Foundation.

The most disturbing fact in my mind is that millions of children have never planted a seed, walked through the woods, identified an insect, built a fort, fished in a stream, or sat in a field of tall grass or flowers. It is about an entire generation of children and the staggering divide between them and the outdoors.

I am reading a book by Richard Louv, “Last Child in the Woods”, which discusses the absence of nature in the lives of today’s wired generation which is directly linked to the rise in obesity, attention disorders, and depression. Direct exposure to nature is essential for healthy childhood development and for the physical and emotional health of children and adults. He says, “We should explore ways in which to develop programs that bring children beside quiet streams, or on top of mountains, or in the middle of a forest where they may feel the peace within themselves.” Summer camps used to be about that, but they are now financially unreachable for many in this economy, so they stay at home in front of their TV’s or computers, eating pizza, and drinking colas.

FOOD FOR THOUGHT:

We need to get our children outside and away from electronics. They need to meet their neighborhood friends. Neighborhood parents could help by planning events/games for the children – a parental commitment to their children’s health.

We need to be able to provide affordable fun that is also an outdoor adventure for children. We have 391 National Parks with 84 million acres, in 49 states with 21,000 full-time employees, and 275 million annual visits. These are affordable places for children to have the great outdoor experience. The National Parks produced a document called, “National Parks Second Century Commission Committee Reports” and can be viewed atwww.npca.org.

There is a concerted effort on behalf of the government to address the physical activity of all children. The White House Press Secretary released a Memo on April 16, 2010 called, “A 21st Century Strategy for America’s Great Outdoors”.

SCHOOL LUNCHES CALLED A NATIONAL SECURITY THREAT – All branches of the military are seriously concerned about the inability of our future armed services to defend our country. A new report released Tuesday, April 20, 2010, states that more than 9 million young adults, or 27% of all Americans ages 17 to 24, are too overweight to join the military. Retired Navy Rear Adm. James Barnett Jr. said, “When over a quarter of young adults are too fat to fight, we need to take notice.” He noted that national security in the year 2030 is “absolutely dependent” on reversing child obesity rates.

Whatever happened to backyard gardens? Why can’t we plant neighborhood or community gardens where our children plant the seeds, harvest the garden, and help prepare the meals? Why can’t parents discuss nutrition with them as the seeds are planted and the garden harvested?

There is no greater thing we can do for our children and for the future of this country than to insure their good health, self esteem, and compassion for the earth. It begins at birth, in the home, with loving parents who rise above their own self interests and toss the baggage from their past to become exceptional humans. Parents are the only people who can make permanent changes in childhood obesity. The government can pour billions into programs, but if the parents are not committed the children will follow their lead and wallow in their fat.